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WORKPACKAGE OVERVIEW
The work in PORTAL is divided in 11 workpackages, illustrated below, with five workpackages, WP0, WP3, WP8, WP9, WP10, devoted to project management, intellectual property rights, dissemination, barriers and recommendations and quality assurance running throughout the project.
Workpackage 0 - Project Management
Workpackage 1 - Analysis of existing supply and future demand
The first task of the consortium under Work Package 1 is to build up a picture of:
- education and training needs in the field of local and regional urban transport across Europe
- the priority areas and key topics for education and training - courses already available in this field
- the extent to which the results of EU funded transport research projects have been incorporated into higher education courses
- gaps in provision that can be filled by training packages developed within the PORTAL project A major survey of leading organisations in the transport sector, universities and other training centres, teachers, students and individuals professionals in 24 countries is being conducted, the results of which will influence the choice of new educational and training materials for the transport sector.
WP 2 - Analysis of existing EC high quality research
An inventory of existing material that can be implemented within the training cycle will be made. The following steps will be taken:
- collection and analysis of existing materials on selected key topics (selection from results of WP1).
- production of a catalogue with interesting projects/studies, guest-lecturers and sites for study-visits on key-topics
- recommendation for new modules or adaptations of existing materials to be used for teaching purposes
WP 3- Intellectual proerty rights
Most of the material to be created or used and possibly exploited in PORTAL consist of copyrights obtained from partners, their employees but also from other sources, such as former EU projects in transport research programmes. The objective of WP3 is to analyze the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) situation concerning the projects developed within the EU transport research programmes. The stress must be laid on ownership and access rights. There is a massive amount of different types of data and material (reports, other written materials, material on the Internet, photos, video clips, audio material, software and multimedia) which should be classified, and their usability defined.
WP 4- Development of training modules
The main task consists of converting transport research results into training actions. Four steps will be addressed:
- Identifying the lack of current training offers after comparing existing courses and the results of transport research.
- Designing training objectives of courses needing to be adapted and/or created
- Adding recommendations on the context for the use of materials related to new courses
- Designing new courses / modifying existing courses
WP 5 - Development and production of materials for practical use
The WP 5 builds on the training objectives and modules developed in WP4, for which it will develop supporting (didactic) material. Special attention will be paid to the integration of the modules into the educational programmes of different institutions. The material will be target group-related, in an attractive form, easily modifiable and accessible for any user outside PORTAL. Possible forms of material for selected key-topics are:
- teaching material: overhead transparencies, slides, electronic presentations
- learning material: written learning products, brochures, audio material
- distance learning material
- material for self-study, audio CD
- videos The aim is to help educational institutions incorporate valuable results from EU-research projects into their own curricula.
WP 6 - Demonstration and evaluation
The main purpose of this work package is to test and evaluate the teaching and learning materials developed in PORTAL and the developed / modifyed courses. Educational Test Sites from each participating country will carry out the new or modifyed courses and use the new materials in their courses. The results of the evaluation of testing the materials will lead to their improvement.
WP 7 - Networks and Databases
An Internet-aware database will be set up to assist leading educational institutions throughout Europe in finding materials, trainers (in limited form), pedagogical demo sites for study visits and institutional partners. The database will be integrated into the PORTAL web site in the final stage of the project and will be designed so that anyone regardless of computer literacy will be able to find the required information. The following databases will be set up:
- Database on educational materials which can be down-loaded from the Internet (possibilities for feedback)
- Database on didactic and pedagogic guidelines concerning the use of the materials developed in PORTAL
- Database of Educational Test Sites (ETSI), which are user group members, and their courses/modules offered (type of course, duration, person in charge etc)
- Limited Database on guest teachers/trainers and pedagogical demo sites for study visits
Another topic is the harmonisation of terms: the most important 100 terms from the chosen key topics will be harmonised with regard to their meaning and translation.
WP 8 - Dissemination
The objective is to disseminate the results of PORTAL to the transport community and, in particular, to the educational and scientific community, transport bodies, institutions and professionals. Special consideration will be given to the dissemination of the project results in Eastern European countries.
The task activities will be performed through the use of electronic and printed media together with a complex Internet link management (approximately 200 links will be operational in the final phase of the project). The dissemination tasks include the use of both traditional media (brochures, newsletters, advertisements, presentations) and high-tech tools (Internet), in order to achieve maximum coverage.
WP 9 - Barriers and recommendations
The aim is to analyse and develop methods and processes that may facilitate the smooth absorption of future transport research results into education. To achieve this aim, WP9 will collect information about how higher transport education is organised throughout Europe (exemplified by the universities and institutes involved in PORTAL) with respect to teaching staff and course flexibility. It will discuss and evaluate the extent to which such matters may be important for the strength of the link between research and education.
The final output of WP9 will be a set of recommendations for enhanced processes for knowledge transfer. The introduction of such processes will most likely require changes in routines and attitudes within both research funding authorities (e.g. the European Commission), research organisations and educational institutions.
WP 10 - Quality Assurance
The main objective is to ensure conformity of the expected results from each WP with the criteria laid down in the task descriptions. Each WP Leader has been asked to write a mission statement, setting down the objectives to meet the task description covering the following points:
- How does this meet the task description? - Expected results - How the WP will be completed - How it will be evaluated
- How it will fit into the overall network/supply/demand
- How it will inter-relate with the other WPs
The following performance indicators have been proposed:
- Does it meet the task description for each WP?
- Does it produce expected results? If not, why not?
- Is the WP's Deliverable in line with timescales, content, transferability, language and accreditation?
- Can the results be evaluated practically?
- Is the testing methodology appropriate for meeting targets?
- Relevance of materials to, and sustainability in, the market
- Are the expected outputs documented in the appropriate style and language
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